Letter, [S. F.] Burdick to Dear Brother, Oscar [Learnard]Authors:Burdick, S.F. Date: January 6, 1858S. F. Burdick, referring to his friend, Oscar Learnard, as "brother", wrote to him from Learnard's home state of Vermont. Burdick asked Learnard if there was anything he might do "to advance the cause of liberty and justice", and told him that he had heard of troubles at Fort Scott, referring to an incident taking place on December 17, 1857, when free state men, who had been displaced from their claims in 1856, returned to take possession of them again. Firing was done on both sides, though no one was killed or arrested.

Keywords:Admission, Kansas (see also Statehood); Constitutions; Elections; National politics; New York; New York State Senate; Popular sovereignty; Statehood (see also Admission, Kansas); ViolenceMinority Report of Senator Douglas of Illinios on the Kansas-Lecompton ConstitutionAuthors:Douglas, Stephen Date: February 18, 1858Senator Stephen Douglas, as a member of the Committee on the Territories, presented this report, which analyzed the Lecompton and Topeka constitutional rivalry, for the consideration of the President. Douglas found that, under the Kansas-Nebraska Act, no government of Kansas, Territorial or otherwise, had the power to draft any constitution without the intital consent of Congress; the territories, though "self-governed" were not sovereign entities, and still were to defer to the direction of the federal government. He argued that even the recognized territorial government had no right to convene a constitutional convention without Congressional approval, and the vote the Lecompton Convention presented to the people offered no opportunity to fully reject the Lecompton Constitution, but only to accept or reject the slavery provision; a person could not vote against making Kansas a slave state unless he was also willing to vote for the Lecompton Constitution. Douglas, however, in his report likened this unauthorized act of Lecompton Constitutional Convention as much "revolution" and "treasonable pertinacity" as those actions of the free state government in Topeka; neither group held legitimate authority to draft or present their constitutions.

The current URL is http://www.territorialkansasonline.org/~imlskto/cgi-bin/index.php?SCREEN=keyword&selected_keyword=Popular%20sovereignty&sort_by=true&submit=Go&startsearchat=10.
This file was last modified September 12 2013 04:09:26 PM.